Synopses & Reviews
The global financial crisis has renewed concern about whether capitalist markets are the best way of organizing economic life. Would it not be better if we were to treat the economy as something made and remade by people themselves, rather than as an impersonal machine?
The object of a human economy is the reproduction of human beings and of whatever sustains life in general. Such an economy would express human variety in its local particulars as well as the interests of all humanity.
The editors have assembled here a citizen’s guide to building a human economy. This project is not a dream but is part of a collective effort that began a decade ago at the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and has gathered pace ever since.
Over thirty original essays address topics that range from globalization, community participation and microcredit to corporate social responsibility and alternative energy. Each offers a critical guide to further reading.
The Human Economy builds on decades of engaged research to bring a new economic vision to general readers and a comprehensive guide for all students of the contemporary world.
Review
"Here, in thirty-two short chapters by an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars and activists, one can learn the basics of microcredit, feminist economics, corporate social responsibility, community participation, alternative energy, and digital commons (among others)."
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
"With its interdisciplinary and cosmopolitan approach, [
The Human Economy] gives a unique introduction into alternative ways of thinking about our economy that are rarely mentioned in public debates...This book should be compulsory reading for social scientists,especially economists."
Museum Anthropology Review"A fascinating and very useful read for those interested in how to change the present crisis-ridden economic system."
Morning Star
"This book is a treasure trove for everyone trying to bring the common good and democratic political agency back into economics. International in scope, imaginative in spirit, it brings together the diverse experiences and ideas that could make possible a transition to a social, ecological and democratic global economy. It is a rich resource for emancipatory politics."
Hilary Wainwright, Fellow, Transnational Institute, Co-editor, Red Pepper
"For a nanosecond after the current financial collapse that threatens to engulf all, politicians, the media and decision-makers spoke of the need to build a new, humane, and needs-oriented economy. Quickly, analysis returned to how best to regulate capitalist profligacy, and restore old institutions, assuming this will return things to normal. This book, with its rich ideas and diverse examples, exposes the limitations of such thinking and traces the outlines of an alternative economic system with greater promise."
Ash Amin, Durham University
Synopsis
As contexts of economic crisis, vulnerability, inequality and climate change prompt a global debate on the meaning and trajectory of development, increasing attention is focusing on "social and solidarity economy" as a distinctive approach to sustainable and rights-based development.
While we are beginning to understand what social and solidarity economy is, what it promises and how it differs from "business as usual", we know far less about whether it can really move beyond its fringe status in many countries and regions. Under what conditions can social and solidarity economy scale up and scale out - that is, expand in terms of the growth of social and solidarity economy organizations and enterprises, or spread horizontally within given territories?
Bringing together leading researchers in this field, blending theoretical and empirical analysis, and drawing on experiences and case studies from multiple countries and regions, this volume addresses these questions. In so doing, it aims to inform a broad constituency of development actors including scholars, practitioners, activists and policy makers.
Synopsis
With environmental, economic, and social crises increasing, global debate over the nature of development has brought worldwide attention on the still-evolving concept of a
social and solidarity economy.”
Bringing together leading researchers and thinkers from around the world, Social and Solidarity Economy blends theoretical and empirical analysis and draws on case studies from a variety of countries. In so doing, this volume aims to inform a broad assortment of players, including scholars, practitioners, activists, and policy makers on the important developments in this field.
About the Author
Keith Hart is Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Jean-Louis Laville is Professor of Sociology at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.
Antonio David Cattani is Professor of Sociology at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The challenge of scaling up social and solidarity economy - Peter Utting
PART I History, theory and strategy
1 Social and solidarity economy in historical perspective - Jean-Louis Laville
2 Prometheus, Trojan horse or Frankenstein? Appraising the social and solidarity economy - John-Justin McMurtry
3 Beyond the business case: a community economies approach to gender, development and social economy - Suzanne Bergeron and Stephen Healy
4 Can social and solidarity economy organisations complement or replace publicly traded companies? - Carina Millstone
5 Scaling the social and solidarity economy: opportunities and limitations of Fairtrade practice - Darryl Reed
6 The potential and limits of farmers' marketing groups as catalysts for rural development - Roldan Muradian
7 Institutionalising the social and solidarity economy in Latin America - José Luis Coraggio
8 Rebuilding solidarity-driven economies after neoliberalism: the role of cooperatives and local developmental states in Latin America - Milford Bateman
9 Enabling the social and solidarity economy through the co-construction of public policy - Marguerite Mendell and Béatrice Alain
PART II Collective action and solidarity in practice
10 Beyond alternative food networks: Italy's solidarity purchase groups and the United States' community economies - Cristina Grasseni, Francesca Forno and Silvana Signori
11 Social and solidarity investment in microfinance - Paul Nelson
12 Balancing growth and solidarity in community currency systems: the case of the Trueque in Argentina - Georgina M. Gómez
13 State and SSE partnerships in social policy and welfare regimes: the case of Uruguay - Cecilia Rossel
14 Extending social protection in health through SSE: possibilities and challenges in West Africa - Bénédicte Fonteneau
15 Enabling agricultural cooperatives in Uganda: the role of public policy and the state - Justine Nannyonjo
16 Embeddedness and the dynamics of growth: the case of the AMUL cooperative, India - Abhijit Ghosh
17 Taking solidarity seriously: analysing Kerala's Kudumbashree as a women's SSE experiment - Ananya Mukherjee-Reed
18 Demonstrating the power of numbers: gender, solidarity and group dynamics in community forestry institutions - Bina Agarwal